When Rev. Howard Moody began the Clergy Consultation Service in 1967—the group of 21 New York clergy who referred women for abortions when it was still illegal in every state—he arranged for the clergy involved to attend a demonstration that could teach them what an abortion procedure entailed and what a woman experiences in an abortion. The clergy met with a pathologist who explained the procedure using a life-size model of a woman. The doctor explained carefully when and what kind of pain the woman would feel. Again, this kind of experience drew the clergy into a far deeper understanding of the woman’s experience. Even the least empathetic among the clergy present had to imagine what it would be like to be blindfolded and helpless in the hands of strangers who might or might not know what they were doing. If a higher level of empathy is placing yourself in another person’s shoes, that demonstration put the clergy in a woman’s stirrups.

Why on earth is an orthodox Jew pushing a turbaned Muslim man in a wheelchair on the cover of Charlie Hebdo, the French baby-boomers’ favorite satirical magazine? Don’t bother looking for any deep symbolism—you won’t find it.

The Christian Legal Society has sued Hastings College of Law for its refusal to recognize their group as an official campus club, claiming their freedom to practice their faith is being challenged. An expert on church-state separation law says the case is more about the religious right’s “political moxie” to claim religious persecution than about religious liberty.